In the Land of the Free
Free, my a55! I almost forgot that our beautiful government has been blocking YouTube for more than two months. I was reading a friend’s blog (Hi, SFO), and he linked to a YouTube video of Tito Puento interpreting Dave Brubeck’s famous classic “Take Five”. Naturally I clicked it. And I waited, waited, refreshed, and waited some more. Nope, nothing’s happening. After a few more tries, I almost gave up, thinking the site was down. Then it occurred to me that those beautiful people in the government of ours, the chimpanzees, sorry champions of democracy, who were closer to God (well, they are closer than me, for sure) denied access to YouTube so that no harm would come to 70 million citizens of this country.
I remember the days of military regime. Good old days! Even those, the top brass I mean, were kind enough to let you know what was allowed and what was not. Even censorship must have rules and principles, don’t you think so? They could have smoothly redirected me to a page, telling how censor was good for me and my children, how it was done for the benefit of the many, of the bright days ahead, a secure place in the heavens, etc, etc. No? Is it not my right as a voting and tax paying citizen to know that a site is blocked? Don’t I have a right to know? What happened to the rule of accountability and transparency in government? I am disappointed. I really am.
As a law abiding citizen, of course I did not access YouTube, directly I mean. I watched the video and wanted to share with you. The embedding code was problematic, though. It was not XHTML 1.0 strict but a quick search yielded positive results and after changing the code slightly, the video has taken its place in my non-democratic blog where I am the sole benevolent dictator. Hope you like it.
Let me know if any problems. It looks O.K. behind a proxy.
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